It's Always You
by E. Nergetic
Summary: "I try my best to unwind, nothing on my mind but you. Oblivious to all that I owe, I'm hanging on to what I don't know. So let's go to bed before you say something real, let's go to bed before you say how you feel..."
1. Chapter One

**Hi!**

 **This is something I've been working on for quite some time now, and I'm really excited to share it with you! It was originally supposed to be a one-shot, but it grew so quickly that I had to split it into three chunks.**

 **Here's the thing: I haven't really watched season 4 yet. I'm waiting for it to hit Netflix so that I can binge watch it before season 5 starts. I know, generally, what happens over the course of season 4, but I'm not secure enough in that knowledge to write it. So this piece diverges from canon starting at the end of season 3. If that bothers you, I'm really sorry! Let's call this AU. :)**

 **I had a really hard time finding information about Nick and Caroline's history as well, so I sort of made it up. I went back and watched a few episodes of season one and found tiny kernels of information Nick would mention in passing, and a few of those kernels contradict what I have written here. For instance, in canon, I'm pretty sure Nick and Caroline started dating while Nick was still in law school and lasted up through when he dropped out and then she broke up with him shortly after. That's not what I have written here. Again, if that bothers you, I'm very sorry. It wasn't intentional!**

 **I'd like to give a shout-out to the fic _One Day One Night_ by  Mrnickmiller for being an awesome inspiration to this fic. It's extremely well-written and I highly suggest giving it a read if you have the time :)**

 **I don't own New Girl or anything else you might recognize! Title and summary inspired by "I Always Knew" by The Vaccines (which is the song they play at the very end of the Season 2 finale)!**

* * *

 **It's Always You**

 **Chapter One**

 **November 18, 2015**

* * *

The first time Nick ever sees Caroline, he's at work.

He's just gotten this new job at Clyde's, the bar he frequents with Schmidt and Coach. It's not far from their apartment so his roommates are in all the time and together they enjoy the benefits of free alcohol. He meets lots of pretty women and interesting men, and for the first time since quitting law school he feels like his life is finally headed in the right direction. Or at least it's headed in _a_ direction. Better than lying around on the couch all day, he reasons.

Caroline is there with a group of women whom he would later learn are all her coworkers and they're all eyeing Nick. If he isn't completely mistaken, he might say they're cat-calling him from their booth every time he turns his back to them. Heat creeps up the back of his neck but it isn't entirely unpleasant. He still jumps a mile in the air when he turns around and finds them all suddenly seated at the bar, though. The look Caroline is giving him is sultry and it makes his stomach do flips.

They all ask for fruity concoctions his old roommate Winston would have died for and Nick makes them quietly, suddenly intimidated by the amount of pure estrogen looking him up and down on the other side of the bar. His gaze always lingers on Caroline when he gets the courage to look up at them from his work. He's never really been into blondes, but for some reason he's incredibly attracted to this one.

They all leave together two hours before close and Caroline is the last of them to file out. She lingers at the bar, fiddling with something in her purse that Nick can't see, before looking up at him. The sultry look from earlier is gone, leaving behind a clarity that startles Nick. She smiles and opens her mouth like she's going to say something, but one of her coworkers calls out to her from the door, so instead she leaves with a rather wistful smile.

She comes back the next night, this time with only a few friends, and manages to introduce herself. She's back again the next night, and the night after that, until Nick learns to expect her every night at eight o'clock on the dot.

The first time Nick ever kisses Caroline, it's a little after two o'clock in the morning.

They're standing in the parking lot outside the bar and he's rubbing the back of his neck in frustration. His stupid car won't start and he has no way of getting home. He could walk, but who wants to walk ten blocks at two o'clock in the morning in a seedy neighborhood in Los Angeles?

Lucky for him Caroline always hangs back long enough that he's already driving away by the time she gets in her car, so she's there when he discovers that his engine has died. She trots to his car rather meekly, raising a hand in a timid greeting, and asks if he needs a ride home.

He isn't sure what possesses him to do it on the short walk between his car and hers, but he has her pinned to the side of her car making out with her rather fiercely in just a few seconds' time. He breaks away to catch his breath and she manages to gasp, "You wanna come home with me?"

The first time Nick ever sleeps with Caroline, he wakes up naked in her bed.

She isn't there. Well, she is, but she's not in the bed with him. He opens his eyes to find that he's lying on his back, staring up at her bedroom ceiling. He can hear water running in a small sink somewhere off to his left; when he turns his head toward it, he can just barely see her arm working a toothbrush vigorously over her perfectly white teeth through the bathroom doorway. He sees her blonde hair bouncing in the reflection of the mirror, but her face is hidden. He smiles. He's happier than he's been in a long time.

Sleeping with her felt good. It's been so long that he wasn't sure if he would still remember how to do things, but as it turns out it really is like riding a bike. They moved quickly, ripping at each other's clothes in a dizzying passion, before tripping down the hallway and diving into her bed. He was spent and satiated by two-thirty, and he was dead asleep by two-thirty-five.

She smiles at him when she finally emerges, hands busily smoothing the collar of her weird shirt that might actually be a blouse and eyes soft and trained on him. She plants a knee on her side of the bed to better lean toward him and kisses him, just long enough to restart that searing heat in his belly that spurred him into action the night before, but before he can act on it she's already grabbing her briefcase from atop the chest of drawers next to her bedroom door and telling him that he's welcome to any food in her kitchen as she leaves.

He lays there for a while, contemplating whether or not he should call Schmidt for a ride home. The happiness he'd felt upon first waking up has evaporated, leaving behind a cold uncertainty. How was he supposed to get home? What was he going to do about his car? Was his cell phone even still alive? Also, _where the hell did his boxers go?_

He rolls as close to the edge as he can without falling off and cranes his neck to peek down her hallway. He spots them, strewn along the floor with the rest of his clothes, right in front of Caroline's front door. She very likely had to step over it all in order to leave. His face is flushed before he's even thrown the sheets off, and he bolts down her hallway, feeling more exposed than he ever has in his entire miserable life. He nearly topples over while he quickly shimmies everything on, but manages to catch himself with a hand on her wall. He pats himself down, mentally ticking off each of his personal belongings on his checklist, and fishes his phone out of his pocket. The little thing (completely and utterly out of date compared to Schmidt's fancy Blackberry) still mercifully has a twelve percent battery charge.

He only has a few numbers saved to his phone, and the vast majority of those numbers belong to members of his family. Two, however, belong to his roommates. _Coach or Schmidt_. _Coach or Schmidt? Which one?_

He highlights Coach's name and hits the green 'call' button. As the artificial ringing sound begins to echo through his phone, Nick shuffles awkwardly into Caroline's front room. Everything is set perfectly in its' place; not a single pillow ruffled or curtain wrinkled. He perches on the edge of her couch and tries to make himself as small as possible so as not to disturb anything.

" _It's Coach, you know what to do._ " Coach's voicemail says cheerfully.

Nick curses and flips the phone closed. That knocks out half of his call list. Which sucks, because the other half of the list is the half that he really, _really_ doesn't want to deal with at nine o'clock in the morning on a Saturday.

An internal war the likes of which Nick has never experienced before wreaks havoc in his brain. On the one hand, he really doesn't want to stick around Caroline's place without her there. It feels too much like a museum, like if he moves one thing he'll be arrested and put in some kind of weird museum prison. But on the other hand, Schmidt is always extra chipper in the morning, and Nick is definitely feeling some of the aftereffects of heavy-ish drinking from the night before. Namely, a churning stomach and a fairly mild headache. He considers searching through Caroline's medicine cabinet to see if he can find any asprin, but instinct tells him that it would probably be a bad idea to do so. So instead, he bites the bullet and calls Schmidt.

Twenty minutes later Nick is sighing in relief in the passenger's seat of Schmidt's Ford Spaceship Mobile (he's pretty sure that's not the real name. Like, twenty percent sure) while Schmidt alternates between worried glances ("I was up half the night waiting for you to call!") and sly, knowing grins ("Nick Miller, you _dog_!"). Nick can tune him out like a seasoned pro, since that's essentially what he's become, and he does, concentrating on staring out the window and wondering if he should have left his phone number for Caroline. _Oh well, no matter. She'll be by the bar again, probably._

When he decides to pursue a relationship with Caroline, he's at the bar.

She's sitting on the other side of the bar, in her usual stool, watching him work with an easy smile on her face. He realizes that this is something he could get used to; the steady work, the beautiful girl, the semi-free alcohol. Not bad for old Nick Miller.

But it's the looks on the other male customers' faces when they spot Caroline that makes a kind of jealousy he's not used to rear up inside him. And it certainly doesn't help that he's caught her looking back a few times. Suddenly his pudgy belly and worn clothes seem very inadequate. So in a fit of insecurity he pulls her aside and asks (or rather _begs_ ) her to give it a shot with him. She smiles and stretches up on her tiptoes to kiss him and he melts into her, his insecurities suddenly far away.

The first time he ever tells Caroline he loves her, they're in her living room.

He's gripping the back of one of the chairs tucked neatly beneath her dining room table so tightly that he's almost positive one single flick of his wrist would splinter the cheap IKEA-brand wood beneath his fingers. His chest is heaving and he knows his nostrils are flared and he can feel the corners of his mouth pulled down hard, like some sort of over-the-top cartoon animal. He says it, or rather, he _yells_ it, and then immediately feels himself wither. _Did I just say that? Did I_ actually _just say that?_

Caroline deflates. She'd been screaming at him across the dining room table for ten minutes now, hands flying over her head in a kind of tornado of exasperation. He can't even remember what they're fighting about but it's quickly morphed into her usual threat – that she would leave him, that she deserved better, and she was going to go find it. And it was the fear she spawned in him coupled with a blind fury he's never experienced before that drove him to act on instinct, to try and salvage the only good thing in his life with the phrase he'd only ever heard his father whisper to his mother once when they both thought he wasn't listening on Christmas morning all those years ago. And now he's gone and screamed it at the top of his lungs. _The first time I ever tell a girl I love her, I just have to scream it at her like a lunatic. Nick Miller! The most stupid boy of all the stupid boys._

But she deflates and his fury is gone, leaving only that fear behind. The exposure and vulnerability he feels now makes the way he felt that first morning in her apartment seem as though he was wearing a full skiing outfit. _Oh God, what have I done?_

"I love you, too," she whispers. He blinks. "Nick, I love you, too."

 _Oh thank God._ He releases the back of the chair and rounds the table quickly, seizing the side of her neck with one hand and burying the other in her hair so that he can kiss her properly. She laughs into the kiss in a breathless sort of way and he's pretty sure the bubbling warmth in his stomach is joy. Maybe. Or maybe it's indigestion. Whatever. Nothing can spoil this moment, he's sure.

She's at his apartment for only the fifth time throughout the course of their relationship when she breaks up with him.

They're sitting down at the dining room table and Nick is fidgeting. He'd offered to make her tea, coffee, an omelet, _anything_ to keep her from doing what he knew she was about to do. But she persisted and eventually he gave in and sat. But he sits on the edge of his seat. He's ready to bolt at a moment's notice. _If I leave before she has a chance to say it, does that mean we aren't officially broken up?_

A heaviness settles in his chest as she begins to speak. He hears her, but she seems far away, like they're standing on two sides of a very long tunnel. Denial takes over for a minute and he clamps his hands over his ears and begins to sing-shout over her, ignoring Schmidt's scandalized expression when he peeks out of his bedroom doorway down the hall to investigate. But eventually Caroline seizes Nick's wrists and wrenches them away, shocking him into silence just long enough for her to say it:

"I'm breaking up with you. It's over _._ "

The devastation she leaves in her wake takes months to heal. He's just coming out of it (and also coincidentally just returning from Mexico with several peck marks along his arms that he refuses to talk about) when Schmidt announces that he's finally written an ad to fill the empty fourth bedroom reserved for Winston, assuming he ever returns from Latvia. Things with Malia seem to be heating up for Coach, which means he'll probably be moving out soon, meaning that Nick and Schmidt will have two empty bedrooms and a ridiculous spike in rent if they don't act soon. Schmidt's written it like a woman, Nick realizes as he reads the ad. He isn't sure if it's a stroke of genius or incredibly creepy that Schmidt can do that so well, but something in his gut tells him to just go with it. It couldn't be that bad to have a girl around, right?


	2. Chapter Two

**On to chapter two!**

 **I don't own New Girl or anything else you might recognize!**

* * *

 **It's Always You**

 **Chapter Two**

 **November 18, 2015**

* * *

The first time Nick ever sees Jess, he's at home.

They're sitting in his living room with Schmidt and Coach. She's perched on the chair in front of them and her hands are tucked beneath her thighs. She's pretty, even with the giant glasses and goofy grin. He can't help but furrow his brow when she sings, though. And weirdly it's already happened four times in the twenty minutes she's been sitting there.

She's just launched into her story about why she's looking for a place to live (which is odd considering the question was whether she had pets ("Well, no, but I do have plants. Uh, _had_ plants. You see, they're still at my old place with my...my ex…")) when the realization dawns on Nick: Jess is an actual cartoon character come to life. Everything she says is exaggerated, over-the-top, and borderline crazy. If her words were coming out of literally any other human being on earth, Nick is sure they would have slammed the door in her face long before this point. But when she turns her head up toward the ceiling, offering Nick, Schmidt, and Coach a moment to exchange glances, Nick knows one thing for sure – coming from Jess, it all seems perfectly natural. Over-the-top, sure, but in a really refreshing, innocent, genuine kind of way. And the look Coach gives him tells him that they're thinking the same thing. Schmidt, however…

It isn't until Jess mentions Cece that Schmidt is finally in agreement.

He well and truly hates himself when he backslides with Caroline.

Not that he would ever, ever admit it to any of his incredibly annoying roommates. What do they want from him? A few months ago he thought he was dying of cancer. Who did he have to turn to? Who would he have left behind? His three adult roommates and a crappy mixtape full of really awesome songs and his subpar teenage DJing skills? He hates himself for doing it, but he knows eventually he'll learn to live with it.

Dying alone is not in his plans. And it doesn't really look like things are headed anywhere with Jess like he initially thought they might, so he'll fall back on the one person he knows and who knows him. Caroline is safe. Caroline is secure. Caroline was crazy, but he genuinely believes she's different now.

It takes Jess's heartfelt confession, coyote-induced terror, and a really really bad impression of the Roadrunner for Nick to realize that he isn't worried about Jess needing him. She's made it through her entire life thus far without him. It's _him_ who needs _her_. His life just hasn't been the same since she waltzed through the front door. Sure, she drives him crazy sometimes with her innate singing and her inability to say 'penis,' but for the love of God he's never sang a song from a cheesy eighties movie at the top of his lungs in the middle of a fancy restaurant or threatened to hit a guy while wearing a woman's hat or yelled at a bunch of rich people to turn on their Christmas lights at two o'clock in the morning, and in the last few months he's done all of those things and more for Jess. He hasn't felt as useless since she's been around, plain and simple.

She makes him believe that things (and maybe even people) can be good. That life can be good. Weird, definitely, but also really good. He's sure he never felt that way when he was with Caroline. Caroline was a relationship. Jess is...something different entirely.

And it's his anticipation over seeing the look on her face that makes him walk out of his and Caroline's would-be apartment without saying a word to sneak back into his apartment late at night and blast that crappy DJ mixtape loud enough that his empty bedroom doesn't feel empty anymore and Winston tries to break through the wall between their rooms. And when Jess calls him a clown, he smiles, because he's starting to think that maybe he's rubbing off on her, too.

The first time Nick ever kisses Jess, it's just before three o'clock in the morning.

Jess has been living there for over a year which is crazy and he's just lost his trench coat and he's pretty bummed about that, but the feeling of Jess's lips moving with his and her hands scrabbling up his chest to find purchase behind his neck sort of wipes all of that out. His heart is hammering and it's a little awkward at first but they melt into it like it's something they've been doing all their lives. Kissing her makes him feel strong, like he can do anything, like for the first time ever he's in charge of his own destiny. But then he hears the springs of Jess's mattress groan from behind her closed bedroom door and in an instant his whole mind comes crashing back to reality – Sam's in there. Sam, Jess's _boyfriend_ , is just a few feet away behind a closed but very thin bedroom door.

Normally that kind of realization would cause him to shove her away forcefully so that he would have enough room to stiffly panic-moonwalk into the safe confines of his darkened room, but that foreign feeling of strength soothes that desire long enough for him to gently break the kiss. He keeps his forehead flush against hers and kisses her again, and again, each shorter than the last. He pulls away and waits for her to look up at him, her blue eyes wide and full of wonder. His arms are still around her when he murmurs, "I meant somethin' like that."

The strength lasts just long enough for him to walk away, to leave her standing in the middle of the hallway while closes his bedroom door behind him. He hears her bedroom door open moments later and Sam's sleepy voice is mumbling something he can't understand. Jess responds quietly, something heavy hits the ground, and her door closes.

 _Oh my God. OH MY GOD._

The first time he ever sleeps with Jess, he wakes up naked in his bed.

She's just inches away from him, her back turned to him, and for a moment all he can really do is stare at the way the morning sun streaming through his window makes her porcelain skin glow. She's perfect. So unbelievably perfect. She even _smells_ perfect. He rolls to his side and props himself up so that he can get a better look at her. Her eyes are closed and her eyelashes are so long they brush against her cheeks. Light, nearly invisible freckles dust her nose and cheekbones and his heart throbs almost painfully at the sight of them. She's so sexy and adorable and hot and unequivocally beautiful it makes him _ache_. He almost doesn't believe that she's actually lying there with him, especially after all the awkward romantic tension they've been wading through recently. He's dreamed of this moment for so long now that it wouldn't surprise him if he suddenly woke up alone at any time. But he reaches out and runs his middle finger along her shoulder blade and he knows that his brain, as Hemingway-esque as it is, could never produce a dream vivid enough to really capture the smoothness of her skin. He's happy, so happy he just might burst. A hole in his heart he never knew he had is suddenly full of all things Jess. _This must be what contentment feels like._

Sleeping her was like going home. Except without all the annoying cousins and little brothers and smothering mother. It was all the warmth and love and safety he's ever felt as an adult in his childhood home, like for a moment he could forget his terrible credit score and box full of unpaid late bills and he could just be _Nick_. And yet somehow, at the same time, he felt like some kind of fairy tale knight come to rescue his princess, like somehow his destiny has been to have her all along. Sleeping with her made him want to whisk her away and lock her up on a tower to keep anything and anyone from hurting her ever again. Sleeping with her, weirdly, made him realize just how much he's willing to die for her. He'd never be able to let her go after that.

He's having a brief moment of paranoid panic ( _Oh my God did I KILL HER?_ ) when his movements rouse her from her sleep. She sleepily asks him if he's checking her pulse and he laughs because _wow this is real_ and then she laughs too and he's giddy. He's never been this excited, not even when he was a kid on Christmas morning. He wants to do something for her, something that will show her just how much he appreciates her, so he urges her to stay in his bed while he scrambles to his feet. He almost forgets to put on his clothes before he bounds out of his bedroom and he can feel Jess's eyes linger on him while he haphazardly dresses. For some reason, it doesn't bother him. That feeling of strength is back but it's multiplied by a billion and he's pretty sure he could take over China if he tried right that moment. But he doesn't want to take over China. He just wants to make her breakfast.

When he decides to pursue a relationship with Jess, they're in an unfamiliar parking lot.

His suit jacket is slung over his shoulder and his breath smells like the beer he's been nursing but Winston's words are still ringing in his ears. The shock of seeing Jess _still there_ milling around by her car and twisting the hem of her sari uncertainly between her fingers makes his heart swell with the hope that maybe she feels just as strongly for him as he does for her. She's crying and pleading with him to give it a chance, to give her a chance, to give _them_ a chance, and it's all he can do to control himself when he quickly closes the distance between them and kisses her. Because if he really could have his way, he would have her pinned to the side of that car so that he can do things beneath her sari too obscene to happen just outside of a temple. Instead he settles on kissing her soundly so that there is no room for doubt in her mind that he's in, like _all in_ , and he knows when she smiles against him that she knows.

He asks for her keys once he's convinced her doubts are quelled and they squabble over which direction to turn, and within a week he's haggard and filthy in a weird Mexican hotel prison, fishing the shredded remains of his passport out of a trash bin with Schmidt while Jess quietly holds Winston's shirt and pants, watching Winston puzzle the little book back together again over his shoulder. Jess keeps making eye-contact with him and smiling this secret smile and a strange, almost foreign feeling of peace settles over him. His family. His _family._ Dysfunctional and annoying as hell, but still _his_.

The first time he ever tells Jess he loves her, they're on the sidewalk outside of their apartment building.

His heart stops in his chest as his words suddenly register inside his apparently pea-sized brain. So far he's said the phrase three times in his life to people he is not directly related to and he immediately regretted all three of them. All three. Without exception. It's unbelievable, really, considering he vowed months ago at the start of this relationship to keep his declarations of love to himself for once. But it's out there now and he can't take it back.

Her eyes go wide and her brows knit together, but otherwise her thrilled expression remains motionless. He can see Cece glancing quickly between them, her eyes wide too, and when Jess's hands raise slowly over the limo window in the shape of finger-guns ( _really, Jess? Finger-guns?_ ) Cece's mouth drops open and she shakes her head in disbelief.

The limo pulls away and Jess is still frozen in place, her hands hanging out the window. Nick remains motionless too. Awkwardness hangs thickly in the air around him, and he doesn't look around when the guys pat his shoulders consolingly.

He's still standing on the sidewalk, hands buried deep in his pockets, when the guys come back out and offer to take him to the bar. He agrees to go immediately. Alcohol is exactly what he needs.

He doesn't _get it_. Everything with Jess seemed to be going so well up until that point. He does love her, he's loved her for a long time, so it isn't like he said it in the heat of a fight or anything. It came from a place of honesty. This is the first time he ever feels uncertain in his relationship with Jess. He can imagine her laughing and twirling around on the dance floor, Prince himself sweeping her off her feet and taking her away from pudgy, homely Nick. Maybe it's the alcohol buzzing in his brain combined with that uncertainty that makes him think that Schmidt's idea of crashing Prince's party is a good one, but he decides to go with it. Things couldn't get any worse, could they?

A whirlwind of sexual Prius conversations, Fire and Ice, Trojan horsing in some models, scooping an unconscious Jess up off the dance floor, realizing that his fears of Prince sweeping Jess off her feet might actually become reality, drunkenly ruining Fire and Ice, and awkwardly clearing out a wide berth on the dance floor later, Jess is screaming that she loves him at the top of her lungs. He lunges toward her and yanks her close, and the moment his lips hit hers every other person on the dance floor ceases to exist. The uncertainty from earlier is gone; it's just the pounding bass line of Prince's music in his ears and the feeling of Jess beneath his lips and against his chest. Nick screws his eyes shut and pulls her closer, desperate to commit the moment to memory, to lose himself in it, to become it. But thankfully the moment ends, because less than two minutes later he's on stage three feet away from Prince who's singing a song he's pretty sure no one has ever heard before with Jess (is that what they've been doing this whole time? Learning a song?), dancing with Schmidt and Cece and Winston and Coach and he's never felt more alive than he does in that moment. Forget China, Nick could take over the entire _world_ right then. He knows he can, so long as Jess (and maybe Prince, too) is there to sing his battle song.

She's standing two feet away from him in their bedroom when they break up.

It isn't as if she's miles away, but the space between them may as well be the distance between galaxies. Her eyes are wide and shining with tears and everything inside of him wants to die. It isn't like the devastation Caroline left behind; this is something so much more real, so much more raw. Because if there's one thing he knows in this world, it's that he loves Jess more fiercely and more purely than any other human being on the planet.

But what she said makes sense. He knows it deep down; somewhere along the line, they stopped being friends. He hates it viciously, wants to physically attack it. He wants her back so desperately.

The odd thing is that he can pinpoint the exact moment they turned down this dead-end street.

 _Abby Day._

Abby's whirlwind arrival and departure left behind a trail of destruction. She'd broken everything. She broke Schmidt. She broke Nick and Jess. And now she's gone, far away in Portland, probably sleeping like a baby just a few doors down from Joan. None the wiser to the catastrophe unfolding back in LA in her wake.

Nick feels weak. He's tired. He wants to fight, he wants to scream for her, but he can't. He can't even bring himself to sing-shout over her words. He just doesn't have it in him anymore. The fog he's spent so much of his life lost in is back, thicker than ever, and that voice inside his head is wondering why he ever thought any of it was gone for good. And the worst part of it is that they can't even get some space. Schmidt is camped out in Jess's old room, so they sleep separately on either side of the charred remains of their bed. Nick glares up at the ceiling and tries to make the voice in his head shut up. He writes it on his hand, hoping the pain of the pen digging into his skin would make the aching in his heart dull for a moment. It doesn't.

Sometime in the night, the dull, repetitive, wondering thoughts about where things went wrong finally torture him into unconsciousness.


	3. Chapter Three

**Last chapter!**

 **I don't own New Girl or anything else you might recognize!**

* * *

 **It's Always You**

 **Chapter Three**

 **November 18, 2015**

* * *

He isn't even a little hesitant to backslide with Jess.

It's nearly three AM on a Tuesday and it's been two months since that God-forsaken night in their bedroom, which is now his and Schmidt's bedroom. He's drunk off of his ass at Clyde's, completely incapacitated as far as driving home is concerned, and Big Bob calls her from Nick's phone. Nick tried to warn him not to, tried to tell him about the dangers of backsliding, but Bob only rolled his eyes and shoved Nick backwards with enough force that his knees gave out under him and he collapsed into a booth. Nick falls over on his side and then rolls to his stomach, knowing that he's probably not looking particularly graceful, but luckily it's only Bob there and Nick still remembers the time he caught Bob sobbing and chugging beer out of the mop bucket alone in the janitor's closet after his girlfriend dumped him last year so who's the real breakup winner, here?

He doesn't want to admit it, but deep down, he's afraid she won't come. Which is ridiculous since Jess is the nicest, most selfless person he knows, so of course she'll come. Probably. Hopefully. Unless she has better things to do. Which she does, he realizes, not the least of which is teaching a classroom full of kids in a matter of hours. God. Idiot. Maybe Bob will let him call Winston instead when Jess says no.

But Jess doesn't say no. She's there within ten minutes. Nick hears her voice at the door and his heart lurches in his chest but all of his limbs are so heavy from the alcohol that he just kind of flops around on the booth bench like a fish out of water instead of bolting upright like he meant to. He hears a faint jingle and distantly realizes that Bob has just handed the keys to the bar to Jess. Bob trusts her.

Bob doesn't trust anyone.

The door opens and closes and then from beneath the table Nick sees Jess approach him slowly and settle in the booth across from him. She's wearing her ducky pajama shorts and her crappy scuffed up flats, the flats she always wore on lazy Saturday mornings when they slept in together and then went out for brunch. _Shit, she was definitely asleep._ She crosses her ankles and her legs are so short that her feet don't touch the ground so she kicks them out and swings them back and forth like a child would.

She's so cute.

"'M'sorry, Jess," he says hoarsely.

"It's okay. Are you okay?"

"No. I'm not okay."

She falls silent. Nick wants to reach out beneath the table and touch her, he wants to so badly, but even in his drunken state he knows he can't. He shouldn't. He won't.

So instead he pushes himself up slowly and it takes more effort than he's ever had to exert in his life to get himself into a seated position. Jess's face is clean and clear of makeup and she's wearing her giant glasses that he loves and a giant baggy sweatshirt and really, honestly, it's a miracle he isn't in tears over how much his chest hurts just from being that close to her again.

"I'm gonna go get you some water, okay? Stay right here." She waits until he nods, putting on one of her strict-teacher-faces while he briefly considers begging her not to leave, and then slides out of the booth. He watches her walk around behind the bar and fill a big beer glass with tap water almost to the top, and she only spills a little on her way back to the table.

She sets it on the table and pushes it close to his side. "Drink all of this." She looks almost as stern as she sounds.

He does. It's cold and clear and it makes his head feel a little less cloudy. Now he can absorb the dark circles under her eyes and the sallow, pale quality of her skin. Her usual rosy, cheerful glow is gone. Something hurt her, and that kills him.

"Jess I _miss_ you," he slurs when the empty cup lands on the table.

One side of her mouth tugs up in a crooked half-grin that does not touch her eyes. "I'm right here, you clown." She murmurs, and his heart throbs extra hard at her use of his old phrase.

"That's not what I mean," he groans, lifting a hand to rub his forehead. She bites her lip and takes the empty cup back around the bar and fills it up again. Jess is taking care of him and everything hurts. "I just, I meant that...I dunno, Jess."

"You're drunk," she says as she sits down across from him again. She says it like she's trying to remind herself.

"Mmmmyeah," he grunts. He chugs the water and blinks some of the bleariness out of his eyes. "But that doesn't change that I miss you." He says as the glass hits the table again.

She narrows her eyes and toys with Bob's keys on the table between them. "D'you still love me?" She asks slowly.

Somewhere deep down inside a voice is screaming at him to not answer her question but the whiskey's still flowing and his head feels good so why wouldn't he say it? "Obviously I still love you, Jessica." He says it, he says it in a voice that's low and gravelly and kind of like his father's, and he doesn't regret it. Jess smiles slowly, almost coyly, and he laughs weakly. "M'gonna regret that tomorrow, prob'ly." He mumbles.

"Probably," she laughs and nods and drops her gaze to the tabletop. Nick feels a little more sober now. Something like hope that's been growing in his chest dies. "But you won't be the only one with regrets," she says suddenly.

Nick remains perfectly still even though all of his instincts urge him to run. He doesn't want to hear about Jess's mistakes. Her mistakes will kill him, he's sure. Because Jess doesn't make I-got-really-drunk-at-the-place-where-I-work-on-a-weekday-night mistakes. She makes hey-stranger-you're-really-hot-and-I-wanna-French-you mistakes.

"I still love you, too, Nick."

He blinks a few times and realizes that she's serious. "But we broke up," he blurts.

"Yeah. Startin' to think that was a mistake." She tries to laugh but it dies pitifully in her throat. "Honestly...I've never been more miserable in my entire life."

"But me too," he says as he leans across the table. Her hands are close enough for him to grab and he almost does. "I'm so sad, I'm such a wreck, Jess, you have no idea…"

"I can't remember why I thought it was a good idea for us to break up."

Nick scrambles around the crescent shape of the booth, which elicits a laugh from Jess, until their thighs touch beneath the table. "Let's not, then, let's not break up."

"We're already broken up, dummy."

"Then let's _un_ break up!"

He expects her to laugh in his face, but strangely, she doesn't. She looks at him pensively, like it's something she's actually considering. "Nick, you're drunk. You probably won't even remember this tomorrow."

He closes his eyes and shakes his head quickly, earnestly, until she laughs again. "I know, I know, but...I'm not blackout drunk, I'm not that far gone right now, I'm gonna remember this."

"How do I know? What if we decide to unbreak up and then tomorrow you won't look at me again?"

Hesitantly, Nick reaches out and takes one of her hands in his. He closes his eyes when she doesn't pull away and runs the calloused tips of his fingers over the back of her hand, tracing around her knuckles and down the back of her wrist until he hits the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Then he covers it, enfolds it completely between his two hands, and opens his eyes to find her watching him. "There's no way I'll forget that," he mumbles. "I've dreamt it a few times, but...your skin, I can never imagine your skin right. Or your hair." He adds thoughtfully.

He's pretty sure that was a creepy thing to say, but thankfully Jess doesn't look creeped out. In fact, she looks kind of touched. Her eyes are wide and he thinks she might be about to cry. "No, please, Jess...don't cry, that's the one thing I can't handle right now…"

She turns her face away and wipes her face on the sleeve of her free arm, and Nick briefly squeezes his eyes shut and tightens his grip around her hand. When she turns back her eyes are still red and puffy and her lips are dark and a little swollen, the way they always get when she cries, and oh _God_ he really wants to kiss her.

"I'll make you a deal." She says. "If you can remember this conversation in the morning, we're unbroken up."

She takes him home and smiles wistfully at him when he looks back before opening his bedroom door and he spends the next three hours chugging water from Schmidt's weird personal collection of water bottles stored beneath his bed, popping mints into his mouth, and slapping his face periodically. He waits until he hears her walk to the kitchen a little before six o'clock before lumbering out of his bedroom. She looks around when she hears his footsteps but he has her backed into the refrigerator before she has a chance to say anything, swallowing her gasp of surprise with a searing, heated kiss. And within a split-second she's grabbing at his shirt and making little noises of desperation that go straight to his ego and he knows he'll never be able to survive losing her again.

"I remember." He murmurs against her lips.

Needless to say, Jess calls in sick to work shortly after and Nick spends the vast majority of his day with her in her bed.

He's standing in Joan's kitchen when he proposes to Jess.

It's spontaneous. He hasn't really planned it. Actually he has, but the real plan is to wait another two weeks for Jess's birthday since he knows she thinks he's planning on doing it now, during their trip to Portland to visit Joan and Abby, and he wanted to throw her off a little bit. That plan seems kind of lame now.

She's been giving him the grand tour of her hometown, taking him to all her old haunts and leading him through her history with Cece and he's never been more in love with her, which is strange, because each day he spends with her that thought seems to cross his mind. But it doesn't stop the bad thoughts from coming at night, after Jess has drifted off and rolled away from him and he has to wonder if tonight is the night she realizes that breaking up wasn't a mistake. Maybe the memory of his time apart from her still hangs over his head like a dark cloud most days, and maybe he's scared that one day she'll meet her soulmate and he won't measure up to perfection and that'll be the end of it, but he's pretty sure he never wants to spend another second as anything other than expressly _hers_. And really he wouldn't mind if there's something on her finger that tells all those men out there that she's somebody else's gal now.

So while they're making lunch he waits for her to turn her back and he drops down on one knee while fishing the ring he bought the day after they backslid together twenty months ago out of his pocket and when she turns back around he whispers the two words he never thought he'd ever get to ask her:

"Marry me?"

Luckily the nerve-wracking time between his question and her answer is brief. "Yes. Yeah. _Yes!_ " She draws the last one out into a song and he's on his feet with her in his arms and suddenly he doesn't care that Abby hasn't stopped asking them about their breakup since they got there or that Joan won't stop talking about her weird stoner boyfriend or that Schmidt has texted him fifteen times over the last twelve hours asking for advice on replicating the "effortlessly cool aura" that Nick apparently has. All he cares about is that _she said yes_.

He's wearing the tie his mother got him for his twenty-fifth birthday when he marries Jess.

He ties and reties the knot three times before Schmidt finally gives him a winning smile, and then downs a shot of whiskey to calm himself down. Not because he's nervous or having second thoughts; the wedding doesn't start for another half hour and Nick isn't sure he'll make it that long. Not knowing that by the time he falls asleep, Jess will be his _wife_.

They both wanted the whole ordeal to be rather private, but after the disaster that was Jaime's wedding, Nick was pressured to invite a few more people from his side of the family. Jess realized soon after that the likelihood of Abby ever settling down seemed dim, so she ended up having to do the same with her own side of the family. Their tiny ceremony quickly evolved into a 200-person-long guest list.

So it wasn't going to be a small wedding, big deal. At least the larger number of guests means a larger amount of wedding presents. And God knows they need all the help they could get (it turns out the combined salaries of a newly-promoted bar manager and a fifth-grade teacher aren't great). Also, it turns out that the park Schmidt rented out for their ten year anniversary looks really great all decked out in wedding gear.

He checks himself over meticulously in the mirror, so meticulously that even Schmidt joins Coach and Winston in giving him grief for it. He doesn't care. He was only going to marry Jess once, and even though he definitely looked like a toad next to her, he'd do his best to be the most handsome toad ever for her.

He's ansty, pacing the length of his trailer, itching to sneak out and peek at Jess. It's been a week since he's seen her and he's ready to come out of his own skin in anticipation. It's like being a kid on Christmas eve again, except everything is a thousand times more intense.

Pretty soon he can hear voices drifting by the thin windows and his heart does somersaults because _oh my God_ finally _it's time to move_ and he's surrounded by his best friends in the entire world when the door opens up and sunlight pours in.

He's met almost immediately by his mother, who's waving her hand in front of her damp eyes and cooing about how _handsome_ he looks and how much she wishes his father was there and she's so proud of him and Jess is so beautiful and Nick's heart feels full. He hugs her and lets her kiss his cheek. He'd wipe the lipstick stain off on the handkerchief Schmidt let him borrow when Schmidt looks away.

They stand in the back, partially concealed by the line of trees, and Nick studies the bridal trailer (which is understandably twice as big as the groom's trailer) parked just a small distance away. He clenches his fists and bounces on the balls of his feet while he tries to estimate exactly how many feet are between him and Jess.

Finally, mercifully, the officiant approaches him and claps him on the back. He tilts his head down and raises his eyebrows, a wordless _Ready?_ shining in his grey eyes, and Nick can't wipe the goofy grin off his face even if he wanted to try. He doesn't.

The officiant blazes the trail down the aisle, nodding to a few people in the audience as he goes, before taking his place at the altar. Nick gets to walk his mother up the aisle and he kisses her on the cheek when he gets to the front row, and once she's seated he looks around a little uncertainly before the officiant smiles reassuringly and directs a pointed look to his left. Nick takes his place and folds his hands in front of him. While Schmidt, Winston, and Coach line up behind him, he takes his time and studies each beaming face in the audience before him. A few of them shield their eyes from the late afternoon sun but most are grinning from ear to ear. The weather can't be more perfect and somewhere further into the park he can hear the raucous shouts of children playing soccer which would normally annoy him but he knows that the sound of children comforts Jess so he's thankful for it.

Before he knows it Joan is walking down the aisle with the most infectious grin he's ever seen on her face and then Abby and then Cece and then the officiant asks everyone to stand and Nick's heart is in his throat because oh my God it's finally happening it's finally time.

He sees a flash of white through the tree trunks skirting the back of the audience and his heart skips a beat and then the trees get thinner and she's there, clutching Bob's arm, and suddenly the whole world stops.

He can't even think of words to describe her.

She's perfect.

She's beautiful.

She's everything.

She's...blurred. He blinks and is a little shocked to realize that he's crying, he's _actually crying_ , but when he looks at her again he has to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep the sob threatening to wrench out of his chest in. Someone pats his shoulder reassuringly a few times, maybe it's Schmidt, but Nick can't tear his eyes away from her to be sure. This perfect specimen of a human being is here for _him_. She came to be _his_. And more unbelievably, _she_ wants _him_ to be _hers_.

He's spent so long wondering what he's done to deserve the seemingly crappy hand life dealt him, but standing at the end of the aisle with Jess making her way toward him to become his wife? He'd do it all over again in a heartbeat if that's what it took to be with her in this moment.

It seems like an eternity passes but finally she reaches him. He shifts his weight nervously from foot to foot while Bob waits for his cue and the moment Jess reaches for him he takes her hands and pulls her close. The officiant is speaking, he's sort of aware of it, but he just can't look away from her. She smiles up at him and he smiles down at her and the idea of soulmates doesn't seem so ridiculous anymore.

He manages to mumble his parts of the ceremony well enough to pass and he can't contain his ridiculous grin at just how _right_ the weight of his silver wedding ring feels on his finger as Jess helps to slip it over his knuckle. He jumps the gun at the end when the officiant says to kiss the bride, acting on instinct upon hearing the word 'kiss,' and it only takes a few swats on the back from Schmidt/Winston/Coach (he still isn't sure who's been standing directly behind him and he doesn't particularly care) before he finally comes back up for air.

She's his. She's his. _She's his._ He slings his arm over her shoulders and pulls her in close, grinning broadly both at the tumultuous applause from the audience and at the feel of Jess's slender arm draped around his waist, and together they walk down the aisle and into the trees. From the corners of his eyes he sees the crew Jess hired to help with set-up rushing in to start dismantling the ceremony space in order to create the reception area, but he stays focused on Jess, backing her up against a tree with a particularly wide trunk and kissing her for as long as he can.

Which isn't long, apparently. Moments later the air around them is full of squeals and they're pulled apart by Cece and Schmidt, and then Abby and Winston are there, and then Joan and Coach, and then Bob and Bonnie and Jaime and the rest of their families and for a while the only thing Nick can get is brief glimpses of her when bodies drift apart. Luckily the photographer appears and they split off into couples again, leaving Nick to accidentally ignore the photographer's instructions in favor of being utterly mesmerized by his new wife.

He knows dozens of pictures are taken because every now and then everyone around him disappears but he can't really tear his gaze away from Jess. She seems to have the same issue, much to his delight.

He gets into the limo with her and kisses her, kisses her over and over until she laughs and pushes him away to sip at a champagne glass and then he kisses champagne bubbles off of her lips.

They pull up outside of whatever venue Jess and Cece ended up picking for them and then he was holding her hand to keep her steady and they shuffled down the walkway while Jess quietly complained about her shoes pinching her toes. He was just offering to let her lean on him while she bent to yank her shoes off when suddenly the doors opened and a deep voice was announcing their arrival and everyone was on their feet cheering for _Mr. and Mrs. Miller and oh my God it's real it's all real she's his forever it's finally happened._

Their first dance was over far too quickly and then he danced with his mother while Jess danced with Bob. Eventually he gets to sit down with Jess for their first meal as _husband and wife_ and he gets all of one bite before toasts are made and random party-goers start begging for selfies which is the _dumbest thing_ he's ever heard of but Jess looks excited so he gets excited for her sake. They descend from the head table and a sea of people overtakes them and he loses her in the crowd.

He spots her again when he gets to the table full of his great-aunts, across the room surrounded by a gaggle of her cousins. Suddenly the song that's been blasting over the speakers stops mid-way. The swell of conversation dies down for a moment as people look around in confusion, and then -

His body recognizes the music before his brain does; he's already in the middle of the dance floor before Phil Collins has even started singing. Jess is carefully lifting the hem of her dress to keep from stepping on it as she rushes out to meet him. He glances up at the DJ booth to see Schmidt scrambling down the rickety wooden staircase. Winston quickly dodges through a throng of people, grabbing Coach's arm to drag him along as he moves.

Jess' momentum coupled with her towering heels and general lack of balance sends her crashing into him just as Phil Collins begins to sing, but he's ready for her; he catches her in his arms and laughs as she presses a kiss discreetly to the corner of his jaw. She straightens up as Winston, Schmidt, and Coach catch up with them, and then they're all doing the chicken dance in slow motion to "Groovy Kind of Love" much to the delight of the crowd and the confusion of Coach.

Nick's face aches. He's smiled more in the last twelve hours than the rest of his life combined. He watches Winston and Schmidt coax Coach into mirroring their movements and Jess' laughter rings like bells in his ears and he sees it all, his whole life, playing out before him. It's all there like a sprawling, winding road, twisting and turning and rolling on for as far as he can see. He feels warm and content for the first time ever in his life and even though the flickering candle behind the head table has his father's name etched into it in the kind of fancy script that would have made his father want to steal it makes his heart clench every time he looks at it, he knows everything is going to be okay.

It would be okay. He knows it more resolutely than anything else in his life. His wedding ring tangles in Jess' curls when he pulls her in for a kiss at the end of the song and they laugh into each other and it's wonderful and perfect and everything he's ever dared to hope for and more.

Happiness is everywhere around him and for once he doesn't totally hate it.


End file.
